It will form part of the Northern Territory Government's 'Sentenced to a Job' program, that hopes to provide training and employment experiences to inmates.

While she supports giving prisoners work opportunities, associate professor Nik Taylor from the School of Social and Policy Studies at Flinders University says allowing them to work in abattoirs is "problematic".

"We know that it's difficult, dangerous and repetitive work and we also know increasingly from research that it's psychologically damaging," she said.

"Slaughterhouse workers have a very hard time in terms of their own circumstances and relationships.

"We're asking people to take lives from sentient creatures.

"Research really does demonstrate quite clearly that this impacts on people's empathy for other people and for other animals, which can in turn lead to increased rates of aggression."

"Basically they found that controlling for the same kind of size industry present, and the size and socio-economic demographic of the area, there were more arrest rates in counties and areas that had slaughterhouses than there were where there were similar large industries.

Dr Taylor says she hopes the NT Government undertake extensive consultation before going ahead with the scheme in abattoirs.

"I think that training prisoners to give in order to give them the skills so they can work post-release is a fantastic idea," she said.

"I'm just not convinced that training prisoners in slaughterhouse work is the way forward.

"I do think that before the prisons go ahead and sign off on this, they need to do a bit of consultancy here.

"They need to talk to slaughterhouse workers and have a think about these issues on a deeper level.

"There's lots of other work that doesn't have the kind of moral ambiguity we have around slaughterhouses."

The Northern Territory Department of Correctional Services has been invited to respond.